


cynics are just thwarted romantics

by hardkourparcore



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Caspar isn't a boring human: an agenda, Fluff, Humor, It is about the Caring, M/M, Manakete Linhardt von Hevring, Nonbinary Linhardt von Hevring, verse is some kind of anachronistic fantasy don't take it too seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22333045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hardkourparcore/pseuds/hardkourparcore
Summary: Once upon a time, a beautiful princess was locked away in a tower overlooking the sea.  A mean dragon served as her warden, keeping her trapped inside and devouring any who dared try to save her.  One day, a brave knight, braver than any before him, slew the foul beast and rescued her from her curse.  This is the story about how none of that happened.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Comments: 9
Kudos: 105
Collections: Nagamas Gifts





	cynics are just thwarted romantics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [wyvernlordminerva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/wyvernlordminerva/gifts).



> this REALLY got away from me (i am so sorry). i was just so excited to see a prompt for casphardt, and messing around with manakete!linhardt and then it just kept going and going... i hope you enjoy it, giftee!

Caspar was a knight. Or at least, he wanted to be. Raised on stories of dashing men tearing down ruffians and saving those in need, spreading justice and upholding a code of honor, and pulling desperate folk back from the brink of some horrid fate, he'd taken up his axe with the singular goal of shaping himself to fit that model of knighthood.

Of course, he hit a roadblock. There were just some people who didn't appreciate his brand of dispatching justice. How many times had he been told 'Thank you for catching the thief _but_ a real knight wouldn't have broken his arm'? As if it were his fault he was strong enough to do that on accident!

As a result, his reputation had inevitably become one of a well-meaning troublemaker, and not some one you'd trust with your problems. It preceded him – towns he wanted to make better, to help improve, shunned him like he were nothing more than an over-enthusiastic child.  _It's nice that you want to help, but we really don't need your kind of help_ .

But he had a plan.

All he'd have to do is succeed in doing something no one else had, something so chivalric and knightly that no one could deny what he'd done was  _good_ and the way he'd done it was  _necessary_ , and then they'd stop staring down their noses at him. He'd already found exactly what the task would be, and had traveled long days and cold nights to get there.

The story went like this:

A long, long time ago, a beautiful princess was cursed and locked inside of a tower over-looking the lonely sea. She was forced to remain there, shining a light across the ocean, held captive by a horrific dragon that guarded her and the treasures inside the tower. The dragon was greedy, and in order to keep the princess and treasure for himself, he often crushed ships in his grasp and killed any traveler unfortunate enough to wander too close. The princess waited there for some one to rescue her at last and free her from her stone prison and scaly warden, and rumors held that on windy nights, the gales would carry her lonely cries as she lamented her fate.

That was like five layers of unfairness!

Locating her tower was difficult, but once Caspar reached the shoreline, it got much easier. Not only did the tower in question stick out proudly against the horizon, but the beach was cluttered in wood and debris. Half of an entire shipwreck was beached on the sand, and if anything could be a signifier of an angry dragon protecting his unwilling captive, that seemed like a good one.

Excited by what was clearly a success, Caspar drew his axe and rushed towards the tower, ready to challenge the dragon and save the princess.

“I'm coming for you dragon!! You let her go, or things are gonna get messy!” he hollered in exuberance.

His foot caught on something, and he nearly toppled over, but he managed to catch himself hard with his other leg. Caspar then quickly swiveled around to get a glimpse of the offending object that nearly took him out before his adventure could truly begin. The beach was full of debris, so he expected driftwood at the least and an entire anchor at the worst, but what he found was...

A person, squinting, garbed in refined looking clothes all sea-colored and teal. They raised one arm to shade their eyes from the sun, before opening them and glancing at Caspar. Caspar stared back.

At first their look was impassive, then it became wide-eyed and curious. Then... their mouth turned into a smile.

“What are _you_ doing here?” they asked.

Caspar opened his mouth to answer, but they didn't give him the chance. “No, the dragon. You came for the dragon?”

They spoke so matter-of-factly, as though the dragon were sitting right beside the two of them and waiting patiently for Caspar's challenge. The thing wasn't even around! Caspar decided it had hid in its cowardice from his mighty blade.

“That's right!” He answered. “I bet he's hiding right now, afraid of what I'll do to him!”

“And what did the dragon do to you to make you so excited to fight him?”

Caspar let out a sharp sigh. “Are you kidding? Don't you know what he did to that poor princess?”

“Remind me.”

“You don't know??” The person on the ground just shrugged, so Caspar continued quickly. “He keeps the princess locked in that tower and doesn't allow her to have any friends or anything! I came to save her!”

“Do you mean -” The person on the ground lifted one arm slowly, pointing in the direction of the tower, which was now close enough to fully appreciate its height. “- the lighthouse?”

The lighthouse was built atop a rocky outcropping with a set of stairs carved into its side. The entire thing seemed unbelievably old. “Yeah, I guess,” Caspar replied.

They let out an amused huff. “Well, I happen to be the person that lives there. It's just me, so your princess may be in another castle.”

Caspar paused. “And the dragon?”

“Do you see a dragon?”

No. He didn't. Slowly, Caspar lowered his axe and moved to put it away. If there really wasn't a dragon, then he didn't exactly have any reason for being there...

The person on the ground still had their hand extended. “Linhardt,” they said.

Did they mean to shake hands? Caspar awkwardly took theirs. “Caspar,” he returned. “It's, uh, nice to meet you! Even if this is kinda weird.”

Linhardt pulled on Caspar's arm, and Caspar pulled back, inadvertently helping them to their feet. Unfolded to full height, they revealed themself to be just slightly taller than Caspar.

“Well, what are you planning on doing next?” they asked. “You're not killing any dragons today.”

“I dunno,” Caspar huffed. “I was kinda looking forward to a fight.”

Linhardt hummed, stretching their arms over their head. “You're some sort of knight, aren't you? You must go on all sorts of adventures and get yourself into trouble.”

...Yeah. He sure did. Any time Caspar went off to finally make some kind of name for himself and earn himself one of those neat nicknames like Inferno Caspar or Caspar the Mighty, he ended up neck deep in something he couldn't have planned for, and only got out by a hair's breadth.

“I was really hoping to save a princess today,” he said. “But I guess if that's not working out, I can find some other dragon to slay.” He sighed, scratching the back of his head and turning back in the direction from which he'd come. He probably should have known that'd be too good to be true, anyway.

“Why don't you take me with you?”

“Hunh?”

“I know magic, so if you end up injured, I can help out somewhat. ...Not much, though. And I won't want to if you make a habit out of getting hurt.”

...Didn't that imply they wouldn't heal Caspar at all, somehow? The thought crossed his mind, but a second thought quickly came to replace it. Linhardt knew _magic._ That meant Linhardt was some sort of mage, or even a wizard, and the most iconic of adventuring duos was a knight and a wizard. All of the most famous knights had wizards they relied on in one way or another, so getting a magical companion was _definitely_ getting close to becoming a knight of some renown.

So he didn't save a princess, or slay a dragon. Getting a wizard was, like, halfway there on its own!

“Hell yeah!” Caspar shouted.

Linhardt visibly flinched away. “Are you going to be this loud the entire time?”

“Hey, this is _my_ adventure you're joining me on, buddy.”

“True, true,” they replied. Their head rolled from one shoulder to the next, making the gaze they fixed him with sideways and odd. “At least allow me to complain, will you? It's the only way I can enjoy it.”

That seemed a bit odd, but Caspar couldn't exactly hold anything against them for it. “Sure, I guess. ...As long as you don't mean it.”

They shrugged.

Without the direction of an exploitable rumor to guide him, Caspar left the shoreline awkwardly and aimlessly, though having a companion helped make it seem less so. Caspar was so excited that he began asking a million questions, eagerly telling Linhardt anything that came to mind, and found that his new travel companion was a person of short responses and drawn out, languid cadence.

“Where are you originally from?” Caspar had asked.

“Very far away,” they responded distantly.

Their gaze was spent on everything around them, the sky, the worn paths beneath their feet, the canopy of trees as they entered wooded groves.

“Got any family?” Caspar had also asked.

“Not particularly. Not anymore.”

All of Linhardt's answers were undeniably vague, but Caspar used them as springboards into answering his own questions.

“Oh, that's alright! If you're happy, that's all that matters,” he'd told them. “I don't see my own family much. They never really liked me, I guess? I mean, they weren't mean or bad or anything, but my brother was the one who'd get all the titles and inheritance, so I was left to my own devices basically. I felt kinda left out, actually, but it's okay! I get to be out here doing all this cool stuff like...”

“Like slaying dragons?” they teased.

“Like traveling with wizards!”

“Wizards... Oh, you mean me?” A befuddled look crossed their face, eyebrows knitting. “I suppose that checks out. I don't think that's the first thing I'd call myself...”

But when Caspar asked what they'd call themself, they didn't give a straight answer, and Caspar could kind of already tell he wasn't going to get one. Maybe if Caspar had been some one else, or Linhardt had been some one else, it would have bothered him more than it did. He didn't see a problem with wanting to keep secrets. After all, they'd just met! He'd prefer Linhardt to be comfortable.

That's why, when Linhardt complained pointedly “I'm getting hungry,” Caspar jumped to the occasion.

“You don't mind deer, do you?”

“...You're going to catch an entire deer?”

“Yeah!” Caspar began shuffling out of some of his heavier armor – the specific parts that clanked more with movement. “We can eat that for like two days, easy.”

“...Well, I can't argue with that. Though it is pretty optimistic to think you'll find one so easily.” They stopped to yawn, covering their mouth politely with one hand, but they didn't say anything more. They seemed to examine Caspar's discarded armor, which included his axe, carefully, before raising an expectant glance to him.

Caspar pulled the knife from its sheath at his side, to demonstrate how he expected to capture the deer, and without any more conversation, stalked off to find that promised deer.

He'd thought he'd heard a few jumping through the bushes. He'd always found it incredibly easy to follow their tracks – he could jump just as silently over the bushes, he could move just as quickly through the brush, and normally, whenever he'd finally cornered them, they never ran in fear from him.

This time was no exception, and in barely any time, he was gently reassuring the doe all the while trying to make her death quick and painless. Then, he hoisted her over his shoulder and brought her back to Linhardt.

It was pretty obvious that they refused to look at the deer. “That was... interesting,” they said. “Do you want a fire next?”

“I gotta clean her up, first,” Caspar replied. She fell unceremoniously to the ground and the impact caused some blood to be forced out of her neck and onto the dirt.

Linhardt recoiled. “Euch. I _hate_ blood.”

“Huh, really?” Caspar threw himself on the ground just as unceremoniously, using his knife to skin the deer and get it ready for cooking. He'd hoped there might be another conversation there, too.

“I recognize the necessity of this, but I absolutely abhor everything to do with it. I'm going to go look for something interesting before I throw up.”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” he said. “Just don't go too far, okay? It's probably going to get dark soon, so...”

Linhardt paused, looking around them carefully (though of course, their eyes didn't even slide across the deer). “Are you saying we'll camp here?”

“Well, yeah, or close to it. Why?”

“...I'll see if I can't find something better,” they answered vaguely. “Don't worry about a fire. I'll make one when I come back.”

They turned with some measure of haste, though Caspar just decided they were more than happy to completely leave the area if he was cleaning the deer. He felt a pang of guilt for even bringing it this close to them, but at the same time he had no way of knowing.

Linhardt disappeared into the thicket and Caspar got to work. He began to get worried, after a few moments. While he hadn't been very good at keeping track of time, the sun was beginning to set, and the forest was beginning to grow dark as a result. It didn't seem like a very responsible knight to abandon his wizard in a scary forest. The deer was just about ready to be cooked too.

He stood, opening his mouth to call for Linhardt, but they appeared before him before he got the sound out.

“So I didn't find anything,” they announced.

Caspar squinted. Even as the forest was growing dark, and Linhardt was maybe fifty paces away, they were completely visible, even though in any other direction, the darkness might have enshrouded any other person standing at the same distance.

“But there's a clearing not too far that's at least further away from the main path to be a bit more comfortable. ...If you like sleeping in the dirt,” they added.

“That's no problem for me,” Caspar said. But Linhardt looked a little... Privileged, perhaps? Their clothes had gold trim that glowed. They looked relatively neat for having spent their last moments tromping around in the woods. “What about you?”

“I'll be fine. I can nap about anywhere. You saw me. You might have an issue, but...”

“...I just said I wouldn't?”

Linhardt changed the subject. “Can you carry that deer and all your things by yourself?”

Caspar considered it briefly. “Yeah, probably.”

“Then I'll show you.”

They certainly had found a clearing that seemed much more suited for an impromptu campsite. Linhardt had already seemingly gathered a pile of twigs and sticks in the center of it, completely unlit.

“That's not going to make a good fire,” Caspar pointed out.

Wordlessly, Linhardt tossed one hand in its direction, and a small orb of flame flew from their fingertips to the gathered sticks, immediately catching them aflame. It took just a moment to grow into a usable, bonafide campfire, but there was no denying that it was more than suited for the job.

“Oh. Right. Magic.”

Linhardt made some sort of amused sound. “If we keep it going all night, will you have trouble sleeping?”

“Oh, you mean the light? Nah, I'll be fine.”

“That's good.”

Caspar didn't think they were very good at hiding that they had a secret, but he wasn't about to force them to tell it if they were uncomfortable. It wasn't as though he had any idea of what it could possibly be, either. So he cooked the deer, and tried to make conversation. It really just ended up being Caspar telling Linhardt about the last adventure he'd been on, and Linhardt occasionally offering a brief opinion on the situation.

He'd tried to hunt down a vampire. The wider rumor was of a duke, long twisted into a monstrous form, finally lost to the darkness he now belonged to. The town that he governed had slipped under his newly found tyranny, working from sundown to sun-up to appease his waking hours, and working sun-up to sundown to make enough money to pay harsh taxes towards him.

The reality of the situation had come as a surprising relief to Caspar. In actuality, the poor duke had been trying to hide his ailment as best as possible without worrying his townspeople, despite it having been an open secret among them for decades. He curbed his cursed appetite so that he wouldn't have to harm a soul, and all the people there flourished under his guidance.

“And his name?” Linhardt asked at the end of the story.

“Oh! Ah, it was Aegir? Duke Aegir I think.”

They chuckled. “Of course.”

Without the telling of his tale to distract him, Caspar suddenly discovered something odd. The fire was bright, and should have sufficiently provided light to their little clearing campside.

Oddly enough, Linhardt was brighter. They were positively glowing, spreading bright light not only to illuminate their camp as though it were day itself, but their light (wherever it came from) was cutting through the trees, illuminating a fair distance that Caspar couldn't fully appreciate without moving further away.

Caspar stared, squinting against them, and using one hand to shade his eyes to make the task easier. Not that it helped.

“You noticed,” they say, clearly bemused. With the illumination it was difficult to make out their expression, but their voice was dripping with amusement. “Can you still sleep with me around?”

“Uh.”

Caspar had to look away. They were too bright to stand. It was like looking at the sun. “Yeah, I'll just turn away or throw a glove over my eyes or something.”

They hummed. “I'd hoped to find a cave. We'll probably be ambushed by bandits in the morning.”

“Pff! I can take bandits! No problem!”

They giggled, and the sound echoed in Caspar's mind for a moment after. He had to catch up to fully grasp what they'd said after. “Alright. I'm counting on you, then.”

“So... What's up with that anyway?”

Linhardt answered without skipping a beat. “I dislike fighting. Greatly. It's just... unnecessary. I can protect myself if it comes down to it, but ideally, I'd rather not.”

To say their gaze darkened would be a lie – their eyes were just as bright as the rest of their skin, but Caspar could easily tell they weren't joking about how little they liked it, and inwardly decided he'd keep them from needing to spill blood.

However, that wasn't what he was asking. “I meant the glow.”

“Oh. That's a curse.”

They were ready to leave it like that, judging from their tone. Caspar wouldn't let them. “What? You were cursed?!”

They nodded. “I have quite a few curses, actually. This one happens every night.”

“Why?”

“What do you think?”

“I uh...” What sort of punishment could that fulfill? Caspar hadn't met many cursed people, but according to everything he'd _heard_ , a curse was meant to punish some one for some sort of hubris, and then they could solve it by just being a better person. Linhardt didn't seem like such a bad person, and he wasn't sure what lighting some one up like the sun could possibly accomplish. “I'unno.”

“Maybe I'll tell you later,” they said. “It isn't like it's my only curse anyway.”

“You have more?”

“Mmhm. Some of them I've even broken. Do you have a water skin?”

Oh. They were thirsty. Caspar quickly retrieved the one he kept usually. It was barely full. He'd have to find some crick to fill it up with come morning, but that was a problem for future-Caspar. “Yeah, here,” he said, handing it over.

They curled their hands around it and held it still for a moment. “Try it.”

“What?”

“It's a curse.”

“Did you curse my water?!”

“What – no! Just try it.”

If he trusted Linhardt to heal him, he supposed he could trust them enough to believe that this was safe. At the very least, Caspar was confident on his ability to tell good guys from bad, and Linhardt definitely wasn't bad.

So he uncapped the water skin and raised it to his lips. The liquid that met them was sweet and acidic, and, when he pulled it away to pour a little into his hand to look at, dark brown and bubbling.

Linhardt laughed again. “Rootbeer.”

“It's rootbeer?” He probably looked a little silly, lifting his palm to his face so he could sniff it, and then taste it a second time. Sure enough. It was rootbeer.

“That one was from some vengeful druid. Every liquid I touch turns to rootbeer, now.”

“Well, how do you break it?”

They shrugged.

They had other ailments too, which they spent a small amount of time telling Caspar about. Every Tuesday, everything would taste like black licorice. There was the rootbeer, and the glowing (Which was getting increasingly annoying the longer Caspar sat around talking to Linhardt. It felt rude to be turned away from them while they spoke, but they assured him it was fine.), and they also mentioned that they were supposed to be cursed to never leave that lighthouse, or at least not the shore.

Caspar didn't ask, because it sounded like it was one that had broken. Linhardt wasn't there now, anyway, and they spoke as though they'd travel with him for quite awhile. He was happy to know there was at least one curse his new friend had that had been broken.

Once Linhardt had finished (well, they didn't finish as much as they decided they were tired of speaking, and said as much) they curled up on the floor and decided they'd sleep. They assured Caspar that they had long since grown accustomed to falling asleep despite their glowing skin, and wished Caspar a good night in return.

Caspar had a little more trouble than he'd hoped, but at some point after he closed his eyes, he'd opened them and the only light was coming from the sun above.

He blearily sat up, already thinking about the venison jerky he could use as a breakfast. Linhardt was still on the ground, chest rising and falling in time with their slumbering breaths. The morning scene was peaceful as could be, until Caspar found a sinister figure dressed in all black sitting calmly at one edge of the clearing.

Caspar quickly rose to his feet, determining how far away his axe was and how long it would take him to reach it. The figure let out a low, dark chuckle, slowly rising to their feet.

“What do you want?! If it's a fight, I'll give it to you! Put up your fists!” Caspar raised his hands, ready to throw them.

“I'm not interested in hurting either of you,” the stranger said. "It was mere chance I even found myself here. Or should I say it was easy to find Linhardt at even an extreme distance?"

Oh. The glowing. That made sense.

"Who are you?" Caspar asked.

"Who are you to ask?" the other countered. "I wondered what drew Linhardt away from their tower, and decided to see for myself. You must be my answer."

"His name is Caspar, since you asked," Linhardt interjected. He turned his head to find them sitting upright, pulling his fingers through his hair in an attempt to tame it. "Why must you be so dramatic? You can just say hello like a normal person, without appearing in the corner of any one's eyes to startle them, or whatever else you like to do."

"You, uh, know each other?"

"Unfortunately," Linhardt said.

"So," the stranger began, clearly addressing Linhardt over Caspar. "It appears you may have finally broken that curse."

"Which?" they asked, but continued before he could clarify. "Oh. That one. No, not at all. I just decided it was more interesting to travel with Caspar. Did you notice?"

The man's cold gaze returned to Caspar. He shuddered underneath it. Even without a clear feeling behind it, he couldn't help but feel as though that icy gaze meant to freeze him in place. It was working.

"I didn't notice anything," he said after a moment.

Linhardt hummed. "Just me, I suppose. He didn't notice it either."

"Notice what?!" Caspar demanded.

"We'll talk about it later," Linhardt said dismissively. "Why were you passing through here, Hubert?"

It almost felt as though Linhardt used his name in order to let Caspar in on the conversation. He was thankful for it, at least.

"Her Majesty sent me to deliver a message to a certain duke, and remind him that it isn't wise to so publicly be a vampire."

Caspar opened his mouth to ask if, by chance, he meant the same duke vampire that he'd met on his last adventure, but Linhardt didn't allow him the chance.

"Is that the cover you're using this time?" Linhardt asked coyly. "I told you before, you could just confess. I know Ferdinand will say yes."

Caspar watched Linhardt closely, even as Hubert made a weak denial he wasn't entirely paying attention to. “I still don't get how you know each other.”

Linhardt shrugged.

“They aren't what they seem,” Hubert said ominously.

“What do you mean?” he asked in reply.

“He isn't what he seems, either,” Linhardt said. They were looking at Hubert, so it seemed as though they were speaking about Caspar, even though that didn't make sense.

“Isn't that nice?” Hubert asked. It was a hypothetical question, delivered through a very forced tone. “So is that why you're out here risking your life? You found something mildly interesting and are willing to stake your life on it for some entertainment?”

“It's always death with you,” they replied dismissively. “But since you asked, yes, why not? It's not as though I have anything better to do.”

“Except that you do.”

Caspar's gaze moved from Hubert to Linhardt to Hubert and back, watching whoever was speaking, trying to make sense of all the things they left unspoken. He didn't really get it, but he'd never been the sharpest sword in the armory, either.

Linhardt didn't answer Hubert, probably indignant, or because they just didn't feel it. Caspar was trying to figure them out, but he couldn't exactly blame them for not wanting to spend more time in the presence of such an overwhelmingly threatening person.

“You're taking so many risks, Linhardt,” Hubert said. “What would Her Majesty think?”

“Since when have I ever cared, Hubert? If I kill myself, it's no one's business but mine, don't you think?”

“Hey, hey,” Caspar hurriedly interjected. “No one's killing anyone!”

Hubert let out a scoff, rising to his full height. “I see this has been a waste of time. Caspar.”

He hadn't fully expected Hubert to call him by name, and flinched as he turned to answer. “Yeah?”

“If you want Linhardt to do something, the most efficient method is to drape them over your shoulder and do it yourself.”

“Yes, yes,” Linhardt dismissed again. “Okay, yes, you've made your point. Go.”

“I'm going.” He turned and began setting off into the woods. Caspar watched him as far as he could, just in case, and he could hear Linhardt yawning on the ground.

“What are we doing today?” Linhardt asked after a pause. When Caspar looked at them, they were hunched over, bleary-eyed and seemingly looking at nothing in particular.

“Well, we've got to find an adventure! ...Any ideas?”

“If I had an idea, I wouldn't have asked.” They sighed, a little dramatically, and lurched forward even more, curling into a ball and resting their head in their arms. Their eyes drifted shut again.

“Are you... going to go to sleep again?”

“Thinking about it.”

Not a moment later, Caspar had his hand wrapped around Linhardt's arm, pulling them to their feet. “Then we've got to find something fast!”

He hurriedly got all his things together. Armor on, axe strapped to his side, all the jerky he made from last night's deer packed away safely. It was a little odd, the difference between them: Caspar was, by now, at least a seasoned _adventurer_ , and he had everything necessary to keep him adventuring. Linhardt, however, just had their clothes, and those didn't even look suitable for stomping around in the woods in. That was the difference between wizards and knights, he decided. Linhardt didn't need a weapon or armor or anything, so it was Caspar's job to carry everything.

Once he had everything together, his hand was right around Linhardt's wrist, pulling them along in search of an adventure. Linhardt complained quickly about being pulled, so Caspar had no trouble letting his wrist go and continuing on at a slower pace. They said “thank you”, but Caspar could hardly tell if they meant it. It didn't really matter, anyway. They had all the time in the world to become famous.

The forest was big, though, and they spent some time walking aimlessly. Caspar never minded – he liked moments of nothing in between the excitement. It was the kind of stuff that made you enjoy the better stuff even more. Linhardt was, in his opinion, a good conversationalist, but that was because they allowed Caspar to talk as much as he wanted, and never once asked him to shut up. He was sure he may have, on accident, said something he'd already told them, but if it were true they didn't say a thing about it.

As was the nature of adventurers adventuring, they were stopped, at one point. Caspar hadn't noticed the cave at first, but Linhardt did. They stood still, gently tapped him on the shoulder, and pointed in its direction. A rocky outcropping with a makeshift door installed stood nestled between a grove of trees. Caspar eagerly agreed to check it out.

There was a sign erected just outside the door that only read “Keep out”.

“Man, when they put up a sign like that, I just want to check it out even more!” Caspar said.

Linhardt was already opening the door. “I completely agree,” they said, though they faced away from him entirely. They stepped inside as much as they could, propping the door open with one hand and using the other to nurture a magic flame.

They had good reason. Upon following them inside, the cave was dark as night.

“You're not doing the glowing thing,” Caspar pointed out.

“That's at night time,” they replied. And that felt final enough to leave it as that.

The door shut behind them, and Linhardt did something more to their spell to make it burn a little brighter. The inside was of a damp cave, but everything was too quiet to really spell out 'danger' clearly. It seemed like a tripping hazard at least – the fire light reflected off of the water on the floor, pooling in puddles in some areas, and just causing the rocky ground to be slick with moisture.

The cave wasn't very large, they found. A single turn set them face to face with what was a pond and nothing more. The tunnel appeared to incline, as far as Caspar could tell, so the answer seemed pretty obvious.

“It flooded,” Linhardt said, before Caspar could voice his opinion.

“I guess that's the end of this expedition,” Caspar said. He was somewhat agitated, and it was evident enough in his voice.

“Hold on...”

Linhardt shifted, crouching down close to the pond and apparently trying to see down into it. They held the fire close, trying to illuminate something, before quite literally setting it beside them (floating an inch above the wet ground, burning just as brightly) and beginning to shed their outermost layer of clothes.

“You aren't really going to jump in are you? You don't know what's down there!”

“Let's say I'm a strong swimmer,” they replied. “Don't you want to know if there's some kind of treasure down there? Could be interesting.”

“W-well yeah, but...” Caspar didn't really have a counter argument except Linhardt's safety was the priority, and just when he was about to _say_ as much, they'd jumped into the water.

“Goddess! Linhardt, it's probably freezing!!”

He could barely see their head, poking up from the water enough to respond. “It's cold. I've done worse. You'll know I've died if that flame flickers out. I'll be fast though. I'm a strong swimmer.”

“I really don't like this,” Caspar countered, but by the time his sentence had finished, Linhardt was already slipping under the water again.

And he was left alone, in a dark, damp cave.

He watched the fire closely to make sure it wouldn't flicker out, and it didn't. It flickered with the same movements he'd expect from a flame, but got no stronger or weaker, so he chalked that up as a good thing. He decided it was too dark to leave the cave and wait for Linhardt outside (not to mention that seemed rude, and then he'd _really_ never know if they were okay), and then shortly learned that if Linhardt _did_ die, like they mentioned, he'd probably be trapped in there forever until he went insane or drowned somehow.

Not a great thought, but it did help past the time.

It felt like an eternity before a splashing noise alerted him of Linhardt's return, and the wizard pulled themself out of the small pond. “That was much bigger than I expected,” they said.

“You were down there for so long!” Caspar wanted to chide them, and say that he thought they'd _died_ , because it felt appropriate, but the fire hadn't faded and he hadn't actually thought that. He wanted to chide them, though. “I-I was really worried!”

“For me? How sweet. Look what I found.” They reached into their pocket to pull out what appeared to be gold jewelry. There was a brooch, a necklace, all sorts of things that would glitter beautifully, if they hadn't come from a stinky cave lake and they were sitting in the sun.

“...Cool, I guess,” he commented reluctantly.

Linhardt was much more interested in them. “The symbol on this brooch suggests it's hundreds of years old. If you're not interested in history, at least be enthusiastic for the amount of gold it can fetch you later.”

“I dunno.”

Caspar stood up. “Can we just go now? I was worried and sitting there for so long, and maybe it was cool for you, but this was really boring.”

“Oh.”

Linhardt stood too, after quickly reclaiming their discarded jacket off the ground. “Yes,” they said.

The trip out of the cave was faster than in, though quieter, and a bit strained because of what preceded it. Caspar was even less thrilled to discover that he'd spent so much time just sitting around for Linhardt that the day was dwindling. Beyond the treeline, the sun began setting, and the sky was turning orange as it left.

Every cloud has a silver lining, though, and he found this one in the form of Linhardt speaking more than they had since they'd met. Despite Caspar's cold reception to that brooch, they were speaking at length about what the symbol meant and its origins.

A kingdom five hundred years lost, supposedly holding great wealth and treasure beyond mortal ken, et cetera, et cetera. It sounded like a fairy tale they weaved, full of betrayals and plotting, and by the time the sun had set and Linhardt was literally glowing from their curse, they were figuratively glowing with the enthusiasm held in that one small pin.

Caspar could concede that something about that was nice. He'd never been one for holding grudges anyway.

They grew quiet, but not for long. “How long was I talking? You could have asked me to stop.”

“I dunno, you looked happy and it was interesting.”

“Oh.”

Caspar couldn't tell if that meant they believed him or not, but they quickly changed the subject. “We should set up camp before it gets too dark.”

“C'mon, you're like the best torch around,” Caspar joked.

“The best torch around is sleepy.” As if to emphasize, they yawned. “So let's find a good spot and get a fire going. You can get the wood this time.”

The clearing they settled on wasn't as big as last night's. The fire had to be small, or they risked catching the bushes around it. Caspar suggested just fore-going one, but Linhardt argued they'd get cold, and it was a fair enough point not to argue it. Knowing they could so easily light something aflame, Caspar didn't bother looking for the best tinder the forest had to offer, and instead ended with a small pile of twigs and sticks of various sizes. Linhardt lit it easily with one hand, and not long after that were they splitting the remains of yesterday's meal.

"You really know a lot of history stuff, huh?" Caspar asked amiably.

Linhardt shrugged. "Don't talk with your mouth full, please."

They said it, but that didn't necessarily stop him. He continued without so much as a pause. "Do you read a lot or something?"

"I like reading," they answered, politely, after making a point of swallowing their food. "Books are --"

"Wait."

Caspar didn't want to interrupt them, but he heard something that sounded distinctly like voices speaking, and there were all sorts of reasons to pay attention to it. "I heard something," he explained, voice low, just because he thought they deserved an explanation.

Linhardt watched him expectantly as he listened. Could they really not hear it themself? It really wasn't that quiet...

"...gave that broad what was comin' to 'er..."

Then, boisterous laughter.

"Who knew the bitch's pockets were so big?"

It was several voices, and the longer Caspar listened, the more clearly he could hear them. They sounded like trouble. Caspar's hand shot towards his axe.

"Wait," Linhardt hissed suddenly. " _What is it?_ "

"Bad guys. Maybe two or three of them. Maybe more? It sounds like they robbed some one!"

"And they'll probably try to rob us," Linhardt agreed. "Cover me."

"What?"

"I'm literally a human spotlight, come over here and cover me."

"We should beat them up!"

Linhardt rolled their eyes. "I hate fighting. If this doesn't work, we'll have to fight them anyway. So just try it."

A wizard that hated fighting! Maybe traveling as a duo wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Caspar wasn't exactly happy about it, but he'd humor Linhardt. If they hated fighting, it wouldn't be very knightly or chivalrous to make them do any, even if it was one of Caspar's favorite things and today had been so _boring_. He moved towards Linhardt, before realizing he wasn't sure what their command really meant.

"How do I... cover you?" he asked.

They quickly laid down, almost throwing themself at the earth, and shot one hand in the direction towards the fire. A magical gust of wind blew it out entirely, and then then looked at Caspar like he was stupid. (Maybe he was. They wouldn't be the first one to think so.)

"On top of me. Cover me. You're... Mostly bigger than me."

"On _top_ of you?!" His voice cracked, and he hated it. Linhardt didn't give him much of a better direction, they just quickly sat back up, clutched the front of his shirt desperately in their hands, and pulled him on top of them.

They weren't that strong. Caspar knew, if he wanted, he could have resisted. If he had resisted, he wouldn't have been flush against Linhardt, faces close, chests pressed into each other. But there he was.

He felt his face heating up. It wasn't that Linhardt wasn't _pretty_ , it was that they'd only met a day before, and even if he was easily building a small crush on his new traveling companion, it was sort of rude (and way too reminiscent of romance stories that were decidedly _not_ tales of knightly heroism an valor) to act on it so soon.

He couldn't even tell if Linhardt was blushing, with the way their cheeks glowed with golden light. They had their gaze outward, probably trying to discern if the coast was clear or not. Caspar couldn't look at them too much longer either. They were dazzlingly bright, blinding, even, and Caspar wasn't entirely sure that was only a result of their curse. So he listened.

He heard the sound of his heart beating, or maybe it was Linhardt's, or maybe he could hear both. But he also heard those voices.

"We'll be drinking buckets at the next town, fellas!" one boasted.

"Only if you don't use the whole lot on yerself, bastard!"

More laughter.

"They're coming closer," Caspar whispered.

"I can hear them now." The urgency had faded from Linhardt's voice. Were they calm, now? They seemed so desperate in their decision before.

"Is this... comfortable for you?" Caspar asked.

"I'm fine."

He hoped he wasn't squishing them.

"Maybe there'll be another rich ass to pilfer from. I could definitely get used to the weight in my pockets tonight!"

"Here, here!"

One of those gave out a hacking laugh.

"Hey," another started. "Do you see, like, a light 'r sumthin'? Over there."

"Shit," Linhardt murmured. "New plan. Off."

Caspar didn't need to be told twice. As far as he was concerned, the new plan was now up to him, and his plan was as followed: grab axe, yell a little, roll those baddies flat!

He was practiced in grabbing his axe quickly. Even though he was without his full armor, he was confident enough (as ever) that they wouldn't be a challenge for The Mighty Caspar!

"Alright, you thieves!" he shouted. The light Linhardt let off was more than enough to not only give away their position to those men, but give Caspar ample lighting to locate them and charge in an attack. "You'll pay for whatever you did to that... That girl!"

The bandits were a bit slower on the draw. Only one managed to draw a sword before Caspar was within axe-slashing distance, and he did his best to catch the blade of Caspar's axe on his sword. Caspar had the strength to knock the blade out of his hands, and he pushed forward, intending to knock the man over. That one fell on his ass, but he couldn't leave the other two unattended for long.

That's right. Three people vs one Caspar. Easy. He'd conquered worse before. One went for an over handed strike, but he caught it on the pole of his axe. That was how he usually fought -- reliant on his strength over theirs, rather than technique. He had, in the past, no trouble overpowering any opponent before him, and tonight would be no differently.

...Except the other bandit had drawn his sword and went for a slash at his hands. It was superficial, due to the angle, but if he hadn't taken off his armor and gloves, he wouldn't have ended with his knuckles throbbing with a sharp pain, or blood between his fingers. Easy fix, mostly, he sent a powerful swing of his axe in his direction.

The important thing was that he could handle this himself. The important thing was that Linhardt didn't have to fight them.

But _Goddess_ those cuts on the backs of his fingers hurt like hell. Every subtle flex required to swing an axe made them sting worse. But he could power through the pain. He told himself so.

All his thoughts, including that little mantra, came to a screeching halt when he heard the guttural roar of a horrific beast. Or so that was his first thought.

The three men before him could see whatever had made that sound (it came from behind him, after all), and instantly turned wide-eyed and scared. One didn't even bother grab his sword before fleeing in the opposite direction, clumsily tripping over bush or branch, hollering in fear.

Caspar swiveled in place to see what had them so scared, and found himself face to... well, snout? of a brilliant, glowing dragon.

It didn't bear its teeth to him. It didn't do much but stare. Caspar held his axe out defensively, just in case.

He glared at it, briefly imagining a scenario in which his own gaze was threatening enough to cow a legendary beast. That did not happen. Instead, it made some sort of disgusted sound and turned its glittery head away.

"Are you bleeding?" it asked with an echoing voice that sounded vaguely like Linhardt's. "I hate blood."

"Uh," Caspar replied, smartly. "What..."

Admittedly, it was difficult to see clearly. the dragon's form shifted, the light it emanated changing shape alongside their silhouette. Caspar could hardly watch with how bright it was, but in almost no time at all the glowing shape was very distinctly and undoubtedly _Linhardt_ , and not a scaly, roaring beast.

They stepped forward casually, as though they hadn't just been a dragon a few seconds prior, and extended their hands.

"Hands," they said.

 _Hands_ , Caspar's brain repeated helpfully.

His mouth had a different plan. " **You're a** _ **dragon**_ **?!** "

"Yes, surprise, surprise, now please give me your hands."

How could they be so casual about this?! He still extended his hands after dropping his axe to the side, baring the thin cuts across both sets of knuckles to Linhardt, but his mouth was already tumbling over as many questions as he could think of:

"Have you been a dragon the whole time? Why didn't you tell me? Were you going to ever tell me? That was so cool, all you had to do was be like GRAWR and those guys nearly pissed themselves! Do you do that a lot? Why are you traveling with me if you're an actual, entire dragon?!"

Linhardt answered absolutely none of those questions. They held his hands gently in theirs, and the refreshing chill of healing magic drew Caspar's attention away from their face and to their hands. Linhardt had theirs wrapped around his, thumbs gently hovering over where the wounds were steadily closing before his eyes. The blood remained, but that could be cleaned off. (It paid off to have a healing wizard, he supposed.)

Their hands seemed delicate in comparison to his. His had plenty of callouses, from punching and swinging an axe. Small scars wove stories into the surface of his skin, and they were just as the rest of him -- muscular, a little wide, and powerful. In comparison, he could feel how thin Linhardt's were. They'd been a huge, hulking dragon, just a moment ago, but their hands now felt so smooth and soft. They had long fingers, no callouses, no scars (or at least as far as Caspar could tell), and honestly, admittedly, actually, Caspar thought he kind of liked holding them.

And then he was seeing double.

"That's done," Linhardt said. They drew their hands away from his, wiping their palms on the cloth of their pants. Even then, with Linhardt slowly walking back to their makeshift camp, Linhardt's hands were still _right there_.

They were attached to Caspar.

He bent Linhardt's fingers, running their thumb across the bluntness of their fingernails. They were completely under his control, but the callouses, the scars, were completely missing.

"Linhardt...!" he yelled. "I think -- I think you messed up my hands!!"

They stopped, turning enough to look at him over their shoulder. "No, I fixed them. I'm very sure of that."

Caspar stooped just to pick up his axe again, and quickly closed the distance between them. "Look!"

He held out one hand, unmistakeably the mirror image's of Linhardt's. Their eyes went wide, and they raised their hand to compare. Sure enough, both Caspar's and Linhardt's were the same.

"That's... interesting," Linhardt breathed.

"Interesting?! I want you to fix it! Turn them back!"

When he looked back to Linhardt's face, he could tell they were smiling. They looked almost giddy about this development, and Caspar wasn't sure how to interpret that.

"I'm not sure I can," they said. "But you can."

"Wh-what are you talking about?!"

"Think about it. You don't want my hands. What's so different with my hands? What's wrong? Your hands are different. What makes them so different from mine?"

"Can't you just fix it back? I didn't know your healing magic would do this to me!"

"It wasn't my magic. It was entirely you, Caspar."

_What the hell did that even mean?!_

They continued at least. Maybe it was clear by Caspar's face that he didn't understand a single thing they were saying.. "Why do you think I'm here, Caspar? I knew when we first met that you were something special. This just proves me right."

"Just talk straight! I don't get any of this and it's really freaking me out!"

"Well, you need to calm down to get your hands back..."

"This isn't funny! How am I supposed to do that when you won't give me a straight answer?! How the hell did I do this? I don't even know what this is!"

Linhardt heaved a sigh. They weren't taking this seriously enough. But they looked Caspar square in the eyes and informed him very matter-of-factly: "You're a shapeshifter."

" **What.** "

No, he wasn't. That didn't make any sense.

"You can prove it for me yourself," Linhardt said. "I don't know how _you'd_ do it. I only get the two shapes, but normally _I_ just think about how it feels to be one or the other."

He looked down to his hands again. How did they feel when they were Caspar-shaped and not Linhardt-shaped? They felt strong, maybe. Rough. They were his hands. Thick fingers, dirty finger-nails, and...

Just like that, before his eyes, his hands -- or, Linhardt's hands -- turned back into his hands. Just as he remembered... As far as he could tell.

"When we first met, I knew you could do something like that," Linhardt said flippantly. "But I wasn't sure what. I thought I'd follow and find out. Lo and behold...

"So. How did you do it?"

"I just... thought about how it looks, I guess."

He bent his fingers, ran his thumb against the tips of his fingers. They were his hands.

"You could probably do much more than that, if you tried."

"I-I think I'm good for right now."

"Suit yourself."

He had a lot to think about.

Blessedly, Linhardt didn't say much else that night. Maybe they just wanted to give him the room to think about it, wonder how long he'd been like this without any idea. He was thankful for it, either way.

So Linhardt was a dragon and Caspar was a... Something he didn't get. And Linhardt knew the whole time? It wasn't fair for them to keep it to themself, was it? But Caspar wouldn't have believed them either, so keeping quiet made sense in a different regard.

He was frustrated, and confused, and honestly a little scared about this new development. It kept him up far later than it should have, it made Linhardt's weird glowing thing more annoying than it had been yesterday, and those things together combined to give Caspar a horrible night's sleep. It could have only been worse if it were storming.

Morning came sooner than he'd hoped, and with morning he'd need to face Linhardt in some capacity and himself in others. He'd really have rather preferred pretending like nothing happened or maybe curling up in a ball to get some sorely needed rest that he'd missed out on, but that was never how Caspar did things.

So morning came, and Caspar got up, and he got ready, and he needed to find some avenue to put his energy into. He decided on training reps.

Linhardt slept in. Caspar was somewhere in the middle of his set of push-ups when they finally stirred. "Good morning," he said stiffly. It sounded forced and fake, even though he did mean it.

"Morning." Linhardt didn't seem to notice.

They were sloth-like, stretching and yawning slowly. Meanwhile, Caspar switched to squats. He had so much anxious energy he needed to siphon into _something_. Working out was as good as anything.

"What are we doing today?" they asked.

"Dunno." His answer came out more curt than he'd intended.

"Alright..."

They paused. Caspar kept moving. Jumping jacks next. This was his usual set. Usually when he was upset, the burning of his own muscles could help ground him. It made him felt real when he thought he was losing a grasp on things.

But today... Was it really his muscle? The way Linhardt spoke made it sound like they thought he could turn it into anything he wanted. He could look like them -- and then all his training and the hard work he'd put into his body would have all gone to waste. And there was the other thing. He worked so hard to be strong, and big, and now apparently he could have just _thought_ about it hard enough? Would that have worked?

Quite literally, it felt as though he'd been in some respects, living a complete and total lie. He didn't really need an extra avenue telling him that he was something of a worthless person. Growing up had smashed that thought into his head enough on its own.

"Do you want to try it out?" Linhardt asked.

It almost felt, in that moment, like they could read his mind. Like they knew, somehow, that he was thinking about _that_. On one hand, he didn't want to try it out at all. If he just never did it again, it would be like he was a _normal person_ , and he could pretend he'd never seen his own hands turn into some one else's right before his very eyes. On the other hand, there was another, smaller, nagging voice in the back of his head that said:

_What if I could be a dragon too?_

He looked at Linhardt to see if they could somehow make the decision for him. They stared at him with the semi-bored look they always seemed to wear, but when their gazes met, Linhardt smiled, slightly.

They really were pretty.

"I can't just... sit around doing nothing today," he said at length. It was both leading into his plans for today, and a small jab at what had transpired the day before. "So... Can you show me how to turn into a dragon, maybe?"

Linhardt's shoulders jerked forward with the light chuckle drawn from their mouth. "Sure. That's my specialty, after all."

They stood up, stretching their arms over their head. Every movement they made looked slow and deliberate. They took their sweet time in waking up, while Caspar was still completely wired with energy. They moved too slow for him, but he didn't push them.

"I thought about it," they began, "and it might have been my fault for what happened last time."

"What do you mean?" Caspar managed to temper the anger and anxiety out of his voice this time. He felt better about it.

"Well, shapeshifting is inherently a form of magic, you know. I think my magic might have been something of a catalyst for your powers finally manifesting... Or at least you having control over it."

Caspar paused. When they didn't continue, or explain in layman's terms what they meant, he goaded them to. "In other words?"

"In other words, my magic helped you do that on accident. Normally, you should only be able to do that on purpose. Unless you really like my hands or something."

They held a smirk as they said their last sentence, clearly teasing. Caspar's face heated up.

"I mean... I was thinking about how your hands are thin and smooth and mine are... Really not that."

"That might have done it," they said. "Which is good to know, if you get hurt again. Though... I might not be around that long. I guess we'll see."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing." They waved their hand, dismissing the topic. "There's just barely enough room to try turning into a dragon... Can't you try something smaller first? You might have more luck."

"...I could just copy you."

"...You could just copy me," they repeated, far less excited than Caspar had said it.

Without any clearer direction, he tried just copying them. What could he remember about their dragon shape? It was big, and glowy, but he shouldn't be glowy. He didn't want to be glowy, and he reminded his body in between thinking about the way Linhardt had been shaped. They were sort of a noodly dragon, his memory told him. They were big, but more smooth than viciously scaly. He knew they'd been a dragon mostly...

Mostly because he'd seen maps with drawings of sea-dragons looping in the waves of uncharted ocean.

"Hey, are you a sea monster?" he blurted out, before he could think twice about it. He wasn't about to rescind it, but he definitely knew some one else might have yelled at him for his utter lack of tact.

Linhardt didn't do that. He was kind of appreciative for it. "...Yes," they eventually replied. "I think I _am_ a sea monster."

"That's cool," he replied, also without thinking. "I don't think I remember how you looked like a dragon. You were kind of... Really hard to look at, you know."

"That's rude," they replied instantly. Then, "Oh. You mean the glowing thing."

"Yeah."

"Are you having a hard time?"

How did they know? Caspar bit his lip. He didn't know _why_ , but it almost felt embarrassing. This whole thing could have caused a whiplash with how fast it had gone, but here he was, literally trying to become an entire dragon already. Maybe he should have been easing his way into it.

Wasn't this kind of a huge life change? Even if he'd already been this way, he certainly had no idea.

"Maybe it won't help, but," Linhardt started again. Their words were measured, even though they weren't maintaining eye contact. “You already know how to do it, kind of. I noticed it the other day. You sort of...”

They gestured with their arm in a way Caspar completely misunderstood. They arched their hand, and shaped it around an invisible bridge, moving across it. “The other day, when you were hunting.”

They had a way of speaking as though Caspar would know exactly what the meant, even just from the hand signal alone. Caspar just stared.

“No? Okay. When you chased after the deer the other day, you had a remarkably easy time of it. Would you agree?”

Caspar nodded.

“You copied the deer's motion. I watched your legs change, just a little, to help you make lighter jumps. I didn't think you even thought about that, and if you really didn't realize you could do that I must have been right.” They canted their head to one side. “So it must be easier for you than even you know. Don't try so hard.”

“Now that you've said that, I'm going to try hard not to try hard,” he pointed out.

“Well, that's fair. Maybe your copying idea was good.”

They both paused, stopped, staring. Linhardt looked at Caspar, Caspar looked at them.

Then, Caspar said, “You need to turn into a dragon first.”

Linhardt rolled their eyes, but complied. Caspar got a good look at their dragon form for the first time.

Noodly wasn't exactly an apt descriptor for something so big. Even though he'd remembered the shape right – they truly _did_ resemble a drawn sea monster on the edges of a map – there was plenty he hadn't seen properly with the cursed glow they'd been bathed in last night.

They were the color of the sea, scales tightly-knit and smoother than what might have been expected from a dragon (if you could ever expect a dragon in any respect). They were the color of the ocean, similar to their eyes, and their claws were shaped more like fins than the horrid talons stories of dragons predicted. They were sleek, in essence, and Caspar was more than eager to try copying that shape.

Where to start? He stared at them for quite some time. Dragons didn't seem to have much of an expression on their dragon-face, from what Caspar could tell, but he could still intuit that their gaze, following him as he stepped around them to better learn their shape, was mostly amused.

After hardly any time at all, they settled down in an odd coil Caspar did not think looked very comfortable, and closed their eyes. “If this is all you'll be doing, I'm going to take a nap,” they said. Like last night, their voice was echo-y, and almost detached.

“But how will I know if I got it right?” he asked.

“You look down,” they answered.

He really didn't like that answer. “C'mon, Lin! You can't just go to sleep! I'm asking for your help.”

“Lin?” they repeated.

“Yeah,” he replied easily. “Lin. Short for Linhardt. We're friends, and if I'm gonna be calling your name exasperated, it's gotta be a little shorter.”

“Friends. Hmph.” They sounded amused, but their dragon-face made it difficult to tell. “...Fine.”

Linhardt's dragon form was the first thing he tried. It took... awhile. Long enough that Linhardt changed back without warning and stretched out once again, complaining of hunger and cramps. Caspar was halfway there, he was sure, and no matter how strange he may have looked in the in-between, Linhardt only gave him a sideways glance and a small half-hearted “Keep trying”.

They stopped for lunch, even though Caspar was more determined to work through the hunger pang growing in his stomach. It wasn't long after they'd resumed (or more aptly, he resumed, he could only talk Linhardt out of a nap once) that Caspar got it.

He'd thought moving in a different shape would be cumbersome and awkward, but he felt fine, and that fine feeling translated into _power_. It was his power to do things like this, and he felt very, very, strong in that moment.

It was inevitable that he let out an excited whoop in his excitement. He hollered loud enough that Linhardt awoke, groggy.

“...You got it,” they said. They hadn't switched back to dragon-mode, so Caspar could see their small smile. “Color me impressed. You know, mirrors are so difficult when you're that size.”

...And they were teasing him for it. It was good-natured at least, enough to pull a laugh from Caspar as he nearly stumbled, falling back into human feet and legs and form. He crashed into Linhardt in an un-announced hug, and they didn't push him away.

“Alright,” they said. “Shouldn't we get looking for another adventure?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed. “Though this kinda feels like its own thing, too. I never really... I didn't know I could do this.”

“I know.”

Caspar grew quiet for a moment, then elaborated. “I mean, I knew I was different from my family, right? They'd call me a changeling before, in the mean kind of joking way. I didn't fit in, like I wasn't even _theirs_...”

His smile remained.

“But maybe I wasn't, and... maybe that's okay. I dunno. It's nice to learn some things about yourself.”

“It doesn't matter if you fit in with them according to them or not,” Linhardt said. “It matters if you're happy what you're doing and who you're with in the now.”

They yawned, or started to, before a cough took their body and forced them to slightly hunch over. Caspar was quick to extend his hands to steady them, or offer aid, or – really, he couldn't do anything, but the simple act of reaching out to some one was itself filled with empathy.

“If you're happy now, the rest doesn't matter,” they amended as though nothing happened.

“Are you okay?”

“Well...” They gazed at him with something deep behind their eyes, considering. Maybe it was a secret, or related to one? Caspar wasn't about to press the issue either way, but they continued without any extra goading. “No. I suppose I'm not.”

They lifted their hands to demonstrate, and Caspar's jaw dropped.

As far as he could tell, Linhardt was _melting_. Their hands were folded in on themselves, looking more like some sick skin-colored slime than anything that should be attached to a person.

And again, Caspar's arms reached out for them.

Linhardt drew their hands back, closer to their chest. “It's another curse. You shouldn't worry about it.”

“You just said you're not okay!” Caspar protested.

“I'm not. This will kill me if I don't go back,” they said. “So I can just go back... Or I can die.”

“Then let's go back!” To Caspar, it wasn't a choice. “Where do you need to go? Tell me what's wrong!”

“You can relax a bit... It isn't going to kill me that quickly. I'd say I have... Oh, until nightfall.”

“ _Only until nightfall?!_ ”

How could they possibly be so calm about that?!

“I said it's a curse,” they continued. “It's meant to tether me to that damn lighthouse. I wasn't supposed to leave.”

“Then why did you leave?!”

He asked that question, but really, he had enough information to fix things, so his body was already moving to fix things. Linhardt was light, he discovered, when he lifted them to carry them on his back. They made some strangled noise, but if it were born of protest they didn't struggle against Caspar's manhandling enough to make it obvious they wanted back down.

“You can tell me on the way there. We'll go back,” he resolved.

And he ran as fast as his legs could carry him.

“...I have a lot of curses,” Linhardt began at length. Their voice was close to the shell of his ear, calm despite the adrenaline pumping through his veins, driving his worry for his new friend and helping propel him forward. “And some of them are meant to be broken. Some of them will never be.”

The trees and bushes were a blur. Caspar only paid attention to their passing if there was some landmark he remembered from the trip there. He'd only walked the route once, and he'd been going the other way. He was determined to go all the way back to the beginning, but the path back was uncertain.

“I was supposed to stay at the lighthouse,” they explained.

Maybe they wanted to say more, but Caspar wouldn't let them. “Why didn't you?!”

“...Because it's dreadful.” No matter how worried or frantic Caspar's voice was, Linhardt's voice was level and even, loud enough to pierce through the pounding of his heart ringing in his ears. “A hundred years, maybe? It was probably more, thinking of it. Just me in that lighthouse.

“Sure, I had books, and sometimes I could trade with travelers for more. Sometimes I left for just two days – you see, that's how I knew I was okay before. But it's just so... boring.

“Then you came around, and you were the most interesting thing I'd seen in decades, if not longer. I could tell you were special. I just wanted to know more. I'm lucky you're so nice, I suppose. You went along with the idea easily enough.”

“I wouldn't have,” Caspar barked back, “if I knew it would kill you!”

“That's right. You really are so nice.”

It was frustrating how calm they sounded. Caspar probably didn't even know how badly they were cursed, or how quickly they'd die, or any of those details, but he was taking this seriously – as he should have been! As they should have been!

His breaths came rougher, heaving. His legs began to protest. But he remembered this area from yesterday, and that meant he was probably halfway there.

“The fact of it is, I'm supposed to light it. The lighthouse,” they continued, as bored as they usually sounded. “I'm supposed to be the thing that kept the ships safe at night, and I couldn't even do that right. Surely you saw all the wreckage on the shoreline. All my fault, each one.”

The muscles in Caspar's shoulders tightened, but his legs pumped on.

“I'm not very good at doing what I'm supposed to...” they murmured, somewhere close to Caspar's neck. “I'm very, very poor at it, in fact.”

A familiar, searing pain spread across Caspar's side. His body protested against so much running, but he wasn't about to stop now.

“It was my curse for being selfish,” Linhardt continued.

The sky was beginning to turn orange.

“I was selfish, so I was cursed to help others, until I learned to love it. That was how it was supposed to go.” They didn't need to repeat themself – they were poor at doing what they were supposed to. “So one of these will break if I can figure out how to care for some one else, I think. I'm not sure how that's supposed to happen, though.”

Caspar saw another familiar tree, recognizable from the white bark and black rings. It was a left turn down the fork to go back towards the lighthouse. Even his shoulders were aching now.

“No one comes to see me, and it's clear that the ships don't seem to... matter to me. Isn't that cold?”

Caspar didn't know if they wanted a real answer. He didn't give one regardless.

“I'd been thinking about doing something like this anyway for awhile. I'm going to live too long to be able to bear that monotony. That's just a manakete thing, though, not a curse, to clarify. I guess you were just an easy avenue to finally do it.”

“You're not dying,” Caspar hissed. His voice was horse, coming out in between short breaths.

His body begged for a break that he wouldn't give it just yet. When he thought about it too hard, the pain of exerting himself waned.

“I should say that's where your little story came from. The princess trapped in a tower... That's me. And I'm also the dragon. Prisoner and warden rolled up into one. Not that the curse is exactly my fault, though.”

But the trees thinned, and Caspar was sure he recognized...

“Am I really so important to you that you'd hurt yourself so much to save my life?”

The tree line broke, and soon enough Caspar's boots were digging into soft soil, then pebbles and sand. They hit the shoreline, and the lighthouse wasn't far from that. In fact, he could already see it, standing proud against the orange-colored sky.

“Yes,” Caspar replied without thinking. “Of course you are.”

He was panting heavily by the time the two were at the base of the lighthouse. He let Linhardt down from his shoulders and struggled to catch his breath, leaning against the wall of it for support. He didn't see their expression – wide-eyed, surprised, and vulnerable.

“Do you really think a life like that is worth living? I can't even leave to get books. I can't see the rest of the ocean,” they argued weakly. Caspar could tell their heart wasn't in it.

“Then I'll help,” he said. Now his voice came out slowly, delayed by the heaving of his chest as his body tried to recover from the sprint he'd just taken.

“I'll bring you books,” he continued. “I'll bring you food. I'll visit you, and I'll keep you company, and you'll never think of doing something so stupid ever again.”

“Caspar,” Linhardt said.

They began to cry. Caspar moved to steady them with one arm.

* * *

Caspar learned that Linhardt liked to stay up all night and catch their sleep in the daytime. So at first he was visiting at dusk and dawn with whatever present or supply he meant to bring them. It was hard to sleep with them glowing as bright as they did, but they were the lighthouse's light, and keeping a schedule like that helped ships get home safe.

Caspar didn't see a single shipwreck in all his time of taking care of Linhardt.

He started just bringing books or food, like he'd first promised. Then he saw some sweater that he thought Linhardt might like wearing, and got it for them, and they loved it. Gifts became a regular occurrence afterwards.

Normally he'd pull a string rigged to a small pulley system that would ring a bell close to Linhardt when he arrived. The contraption was created to help alert Linhardt when he'd arrived, even if they were in the middle of a wonderful nap. After awhile, it became Caspar just letting himself in without asking.

On a few occasions he'd left whatever he'd brought in Linhardt's little tower room without even waking them, and Linhardt decided they didn't like that.

And at one point, somehow, Caspar had ended up living with them entirely.

He still left to get food or books or gold for either, but he always came back, and these new returns were met with a big smile from Linhardt, and a gentle hug. Then later, with a kiss or more. They began sleeping in each other's arms, and it no longer became Caspar helping out a friend, but him supporting his lover.

He noticed when Linhardt was smiling more, and when they laughed more. He decided their smile was brightest in the day time. It couldn't compare to their skin at night.

One day, Linhardt asked him to bring back a blank journal. They had it opened in their lap since, tapping their fingers at the edges, contemplating what to write.

“I think one of the curses broke,” they said eventually.

“Hey! That's great!” Caspar replied. For a magnet of a myriad of curses, Linhardt managed day-to-day life fine, but he kinda sort of expected to notice if one of them finally broke.

“That's right,” they said. “I think I can leave the lighthouse if I want.”

“But the ships --”

“I think I can,” they interjected quickly. “I don't think I want to, though. I'm happy here. With you.”

Caspar couldn't help but grin.

“So since I'm in such a good curse-free mood --” they were joking, of course. They still lit up like a beacon at night, and their drinks still turned into rootbeer when they touched them (they did this often to Caspar's tea, just to tease him). “--I think I will write a story. Can I tell you it first?”

“Please.”

“Okay,” they began. “It goes like this:

“Once upon a time, a tragic princess was locked away inside a tower. She was cursed to never leave, 'less she fade away into nothing. She was tasked with lighting the lighthouse's beacon, night after night, until she died, for her life was not as important as those of other's.

“But one day, a handsome hero found her mourning her fate on the beach, and he said --”

They paused, opening it for Caspar's answer. His answer was, “I love you.”

Linhardt turned red immediately, the smile stricken from their face. “I love you, too,” they returned, immediately. “Won't you let me finish my story?”

“Why is it a hero, anyway?”

“Because you're my hero, _clearly_. Did you not get that the story was an allegory for how we met?”

“No,” Caspar said, grinning. “I definitely got that.”

Being a hero – even if it was just _Linhardt's_ hero – was much better than being merely a knight, anyway.

“I'll continue,” they continued.

“The handsome hero said 'I'll take you away from here'. The princess asked 'But what do you want in return?', and the hero replied 'I only want your friendship. I want to see everything new, and to have some one to share it with would please me greatly.'”

“I don't talk like that,” Caspar said.

“You do in my story,” they retorted.

“The princess wanted to leave her lighthouse more than anything, and left hand in hand with her hero. They found buried treasure lost to time, and they fought ferocious foes side by side. But the princess could not outrun her curse forever, and it caught up to her quickly.

“But the hero, who had nothing but kindness in his heart, would not see her succumb so easily, and brought her back to the lighthouse she used to call prison.”

“How are you ending it?” Caspar asked.

“Well, they get married and live happily ever after, obviously. That's how it _needs_ to end.”

“So what you mean is,” he said. He stood up from where he'd been seated on the floor, and crossed the room. Linhardt, from their chair, needed to look up to him to maintain eye contact. “I need to come back with a ring and propose to you?”

Their flush returned, but only half as bad as before. “I would say... Yes.”

Caspar beamed, and closed the remaining distance between their lips.


End file.
